Guys, the soft ones in a relationship?

I am in a sociology class, and we had an assignment to look up some studies that have been recently studied by sociologists. I found an article on the relationship between substance abuse and romantic relationships in the two years following high school. Apparently, if a teenager just out of high school is in a relationship he/she is 40% less likely to use damaging substances like alcohol or marijuana, than if he/she was single during that time. However, if the individual's boyfriend/girlfriend is a substance user, that same person can also be inclined to start using what his/her partner is using. So, if you are in a relationship you influence your spouse's/boyfriend's/girlfriend's substance use.

My article wasn't as interesting to me as the one a bunch of other people found. It was about guys being more shaken up by relationship issues than girls. I found that interesting because it always seems like the girl is the emotional wreck after a relationship ends, but guys are actually silently hurting more.
The reason for this is that women are naturally inclined to have deep relationships with the people they become friends with, while men tend to keep the relationships pretty much on the surface level especially with his guy buddies, parents, and so forth (not so much with friends that are girls though). Therefore, when a guy goes into a relationship, he allows himself to have a deeper relationship with her, and he is more emotionally involved. So if there are any troubles between them, he is very shaken up since he isn't used to being so emotionally attached to the situation. Females on the other hand normally form deeper connections with their girlfriends or even their guy friends, so when the hard times hit, they are more accustomed to the emotional turmoil and are able to deal with it better.

So guys are mush balls under all that tough, manly crap :) Eh, it's not a bad thing; girls tend to like when a guy has both of those particular two dimensions to them: the tough guy and the sensitive sweetheart. Of course, there are a lot more than just those two levels to a guy, but those other ones vary from guy to guy I think.

For me, this was interesting because it never occurred to me that this is how guys are, and it makes perfect sense to me. It's one of those moments where I bang my forehead on the table and say to myself, "gosh, I shoulda known that..." Haha, ah well, ya learn something new everyday. So to all the guys out there, I apologize for all the girls who like to toy around with your hearts. People always seem to look down on the guy when a girl comes out of a relationship seeming destroyed within, which can be very unfair. Thanks for being the macho guys and the cute mushballs, us girls love :)


Some of the information above was purely my opinion/thoughts, but a lot of it came from the following articles, which can be found through the following links:

Relationships Can Lower Substance Use in Young People
http://www.asanet.org/press/relationships_and_substance_use.cfm

Study: Young Men More Vulnerable Than Women to Relationship Ups and Downs
http://www.asanet.org/press/relationship_ups_and_downs.cfm